Between the Spaces I: Portal-Slayer
Here we begin the chronicles of Between the Spaces. Today I grant you the prologue, tomorrow or the day after shall come the first real episode, and updates shall be approximately bimonthly after that.
In an infinite multiverse, you can’t see everything. Everybody understands that. What most people don’t realise is that there are places between the spaces that we know. These are dangerous, wicked places, worse than the Lower Planes. They seep, innocuously and vilely, through our experience and perception. Creatures, alien and malign, horrible in form and function, lying just below sight. They get here somehow. They must. Fortunately, I have been granted the sight to see them and the blades to fight them. And my first job is to find the hole in reality that lets them in. Portals. They are the paths between the spaces. They are to be my enemy.
The man, tall and solidly built, stood on a ledge of basalt floating in the liquid fire sea. Ripples of heat distorted the air in all directions. Silver blades wavered and became fluid, flowing up against gravity's pull to reform into bracers on the man's arms. Behind him, the portal from Regulus to the plane of Fire crackled, sizzled, and dimmed, never to open again. Despite the heat, the man wore a long, heavy coat and a leather mask obscured his face. He tilted his head upwards, sniffing at the searing air. The next one in the chain was close.
Over an hour later found the man standing ankle-deep in a magma flow, his heavy boots immune to the flames. Three salamanders stood before him, barring his way with halberds.
'We're guarding this gate,' one said.
'Nobody gets through. This portal's considered dangerous to the plane,' said another.
'That is why I must go through it,' the tall man said, his voice deep and gravely. 'I will make your plane safer.'
'Nobody gets through,' the second salamander repeated. 'Those are the orders.' He didn't notice the man's silver bracers flowing down, melted and dripping, over his hands. If he had, he might have lived.
One salamander remained alive, lying at the man's feet. 'Tell your boss your job isn't needed anymore,' the man said as he stepped over the creature. 'Tell him that Portal-Slayer will be ensuring the safety of the multiverse.' A cold wind swept through the open portal, flurries of snow melting, then vaporising, the clouds of steam swept away to join the mixture of gases that served for air on the plane of Fire. The man stepped through, his arms extended out to his sides.
In an infinite multiverse, you can’t see everything. Everybody understands that. What most people don’t realise is that there are places between the spaces that we know. These are dangerous, wicked places, worse than the Lower Planes. They seep, innocuously and vilely, through our experience and perception. Creatures, alien and malign, horrible in form and function, lying just below sight. They get here somehow. They must. Fortunately, I have been granted the sight to see them and the blades to fight them. And my first job is to find the hole in reality that lets them in. Portals. They are the paths between the spaces. They are to be my enemy.
The man, tall and solidly built, stood on a ledge of basalt floating in the liquid fire sea. Ripples of heat distorted the air in all directions. Silver blades wavered and became fluid, flowing up against gravity's pull to reform into bracers on the man's arms. Behind him, the portal from Regulus to the plane of Fire crackled, sizzled, and dimmed, never to open again. Despite the heat, the man wore a long, heavy coat and a leather mask obscured his face. He tilted his head upwards, sniffing at the searing air. The next one in the chain was close.
Over an hour later found the man standing ankle-deep in a magma flow, his heavy boots immune to the flames. Three salamanders stood before him, barring his way with halberds.
'We're guarding this gate,' one said.
'Nobody gets through. This portal's considered dangerous to the plane,' said another.
'That is why I must go through it,' the tall man said, his voice deep and gravely. 'I will make your plane safer.'
'Nobody gets through,' the second salamander repeated. 'Those are the orders.' He didn't notice the man's silver bracers flowing down, melted and dripping, over his hands. If he had, he might have lived.
One salamander remained alive, lying at the man's feet. 'Tell your boss your job isn't needed anymore,' the man said as he stepped over the creature. 'Tell him that Portal-Slayer will be ensuring the safety of the multiverse.' A cold wind swept through the open portal, flurries of snow melting, then vaporising, the clouds of steam swept away to join the mixture of gases that served for air on the plane of Fire. The man stepped through, his arms extended out to his sides.